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Rupert Webb, cricketer and actor – obituary

Rupert Webb, who has died aged 96, was Sussex’s regular wicketkeeper for much of the 1950s; he was also many other things – a photographer, businessman, model and actor – as well as a raconteur whose stories lost nothing in the telling.

Rupert Thomas Webb was born at Harrow on July 11 1922 into a family which had known hard times. His father had run a clothes shop, which had to be abandoned when he was called up in 1917 at the age of 45. After the war Webb senior was unemployed, and his family (he had a wife and three children) lived on the edge of starvation. When, in 1921, he finally landed a job as a compositor at HM Stationery Office, he celebrated extensively. Rupert was born nine months later.

He proved to be a bright boy, albeit obliged to leave school at 14. He found work at the local Kodak laboratory, where his brother was a manager. The pay was 15 shillings for a 44-hour week.

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Rupert Webb, who has died aged 96, was Sussex’s regular wicketkeeper for much of the 1950s; he was also many other things – a photographer, businessman, model and actor – as well as a raconteur whose stories lost nothing in the telling.

Rupert Thomas Webb was born at Harrow on July 11 1922 into a family which had known hard times. His father had run a clothes shop, which had to be abandoned when he was called up in 1917 at the age of 45. After the war Webb senior was unemployed, and his family (he had a wife and three children) lived on the edge of starvation. When, in 1921, he finally landed a job as a compositor at HM Stationery Office, he celebrated extensively. Rupert was born nine months later.

He proved to be a bright boy, albeit obliged to leave school at 14. He found work at the local Kodak laboratory, where his brother was a manager. The pay was 15 shillings for a 44-hour week.

The company, however, possessed an excellent sports ground, and very soon Rupert was wicketkeeper in Kodak’s first team. In 1940, still under 18, he was asked to turn out for a local Harrow side in a charity match against an XI captained by the Middlesex and England batsman Patsy Hendren.

Webb keeping wicket in 1956
Credit: ANL/REX/Shutterstock

At the last minute, however, Webb was transferred to Hendren’s team, and found himself keeping wicket to the leg-spinner Jim Sims, also of Middlesex and England. He acquitted himself so well that Hendren sounded him out on the possibility of playing for Middlesex: “If we both survive the war, and you’re still keen, come and see me.”

Webb was called up into the King’s Own Scottish Borderers at Berwick-upon-Tweed, which proved a tough introduction to military life. After he made a century for the regiment at Inverness, however, his popularity soared. Drawing on his experience at Kodak, Webb wanted to become a photographer in the services. He achieved this ambition through a transfer to the Royal Navy, though his life was constantly in peril as his ship dodged U-boats off Greenland and Norway.

At the end of hostilities Webb returned to Kodak, but Patsy Hendren’s invitation was still lodged in his mind. “I can’t remember your name,” Hendren told him when he turned up at the great man’s front door, “but you’re a wicketkeeper, aren’t you?”

Hendren did his best, but in 1947 there was no place for Webb at Middlesex. Fortunately, Hendren now became coach at Hove, and sent for his protégé. In Webb’s first-class debut, for Sussex against Gloucestershire at Bristol in May 1948, he stumped the young Tom Graveney.

By 1950, as “Billy” Griffith gradually withdrew from first-class cricket, Webb had staked his claim as Sussex’s leading wicketkeeper, a position he held until 1958. His services were recognised by the award of a county cap in 1950, and by a benefit in 1960.

During the winters he worked for the logistics company Powell Duffryn, first as a salesman, then as manager. Sussex’s best season of that era was 1953 when, under David Sheppard’s captaincy, they came second to Surrey in the championship. Occasionally, though, the cult of the amateur, so marked at Sussex, counted against the workaday professional. From time to time Webb would be required to give up his place – and his match fee – to some young gentleman who fancied a game.

His status in the team, however, was rarely questioned until Robin Marlar became captain of Sussex in 1955. “Marlar was sort of anti-me,” Webb recalled. “I don’t know why, but he was.” In truth, while Webb was a fine keeper close to the wicket, he was less reliable when standing back. Moreover, in county cricket he rarely contributed much as a batsman.

In 1958 Marlar suddenly ordered Jim Parks to keep wicket against Essex at Brentwood. Webb was already putting his pads on. “Oh, by the way, you are not playing,” Marlar told him.

Thenceforth his place in the Sussex side was never secure. He turned out for the county only four times in 1959. In 1960, when Ted Dexter was captain, he played eight times, usually when Jim Parks (who had now become England’s wicketkeeper) was away on Test duty.

Webb in 2004
Credit: Kent News Agency Ltd

Webb retired from first-class cricket at the end of 1960, after 255 matches for Sussex. Altogether he claimed 453 victims as wicketkeeper, 129 of them stumped. With the bat, however, he mustered only 2,685 runs at an average of 11.72.

For some time after 1960 Webb continued to work for Powell Duffryn. Then, in 1983, after the death of his first wife, he married Barbara Whatley, an actress who claimed to have received a proposal from Elvis Presley in 1966.

Webb now found new opportunities, and was soon working as a model. One job for Nestlé, involving a three-hour shoot, brought him £3,000, nearly half of what he had earned in 13 years as a cricketer.

Webb’s photograph was seen in the London Tube, advertising the Independent newspaper. He also appeared as an angry farmer on a tractor in a Conservative party political broadcast; as an American art dealer in a French and Saunders show; and as a customer in a Specsavers advert. At the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) he may be glimpsed as the father of Duckface (Anna Chancellor), the spurned bride of Charles (Hugh Grant).

Rupert Webb walks Henrietta (Anna Chancellor) down the aisle in Four Weddings and a Funeral

In 2004 Robin Marlar raked over an old controversy when he observed in that year’s Wisden that in 1953 Webb had cost Sussex the championship by missing a catch off his bowling from the Yorkshire left-hander Vic Wilson. Since the incident took place on July 24 1953, when Sussex still had another seven games to play, Marlar’s verdict must be accounted severe. But the accusation was still rankling in 2012.